It appears the Americans now have agreed to forgo direct recognition by the Quartet of Israel's Jewish identity, as well as indirect recognition of the legality of the settlements.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (3rd R) sits down to a working dinner with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (4th R), Quartet Representative and former prime minister of Britain Tony Blair (2Photo by Reuters

In a speech that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he could sign on to "with both hands," U.S. President Barack Obama told the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly that peace is not achieved through General Assembly speeches or even through UN Security Council resolutions.

The American president forgot to add that it is also not achieved through decisions of the Middle East Quartet, the grouping comprised of the United States, the UN, the European Union and Russia.

It has been eight years since the Quartet proposed the Middle East road map to the governments of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. In November 2003, the Security Council voted unanimously in favor of President George W. Bush's request to adopt the detailed blueprint, through Resolution 1515.

This past weekend in New York the road map and Resolution 1515 became just another line in an announcement by the Quartet, at the end of the dueling speeches of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Those who have closely followed the peace process will remember that one of the first clauses of the road map requires Israel to dismantle West Bank Jewish settlement outposts - constructed since March 2001 - and to halt construction entirely in the settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has trumpeted his exceptional agreement to (partially ) halt construction in the settlements for ten months in 2009-2010. And when the Security Council sought to condemn settlement expansion, Obama directed the United States to veto such a resolution.

The road map set a detailed timetable for the peace process, including a deadline for a final resolution of the conflict by the end of 2005.

Friday's announcement by the Quartet moves the final deadline to the end of 2012.

It's no coincidence that the roadmap didn't give the process another 12 months, but instead allocated until the end of next year. By that time, Obama will have either been reelected or will be a lame duck president, but one way or another, he will be freed of domestic political considerations; Obama will be able to present Netanyahu a bill for all the carrots he provided to the Israeli prime minister.

During that same period, Knesset elections are also expected, and, incidentally, crises with American presidents have twice contributed to the fall from power of a Likud government.

The Quartet's decision to allow a month for negotiations to begin is not coincidental either. The Palestinians are hoping to time a vote on recognition of Palestinian statehood by the UN General Assembly for November 29. That's the anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution that provided for the establishment of Israel.

The parties' conduct throughout the month is expected to influence what position America's ambassador at the UN, Susan Rice, and her European counterparts will take in advance of a vote on Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu is faced with expectations at the hands of Obama and his Quartet colleagues, as mentioned in the Quartet's statement of May 20 - which makes reference to Obama's State Department speech the day before, in which he stated that negotiations should be based on the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps.

It appears that the Americans now have agreed also to forgo direct recognition by the Quartet of Israel's Jewish identity, as well as indirect recognition of the legality of the settlements. Those provisions were previously included in a draft of a document that the European Union, Russia and the UN were presented with in July, but were noticeably absent from Friday's announcement.

The devil isn't in the details of an agreement but rather in the extent of the determination of the Europeans to fill the role of the United States at the top. Also troubling was the involvement of the Russians, who delayed release of the Quartet statement until the Palestinian application for recognition was presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Will the Americans manage to go on with the show, hoping that in the interim domestic politics will also make room for foreign policy? Will the road map find a tough enough navigator to promote it? Will Palestinian politics permit Abbas to swallow additional bitter pills? And will Netanyahu "gain" another year, as he faces a violent regional conflict?

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You guys are really slow to click on to what is happening here. You are
not dealing with an idiot. Abbas has woken up to the game and is playing
his own. The Quartet,America and Israel have pushed the Palestinians
there. I cannot help but think Obama has orchestrated it this way.
Israel has been sidelined because it never abides by any peace process
and gets America to veto or it simply refuses to comply with any
Resolution the UN makes to resolve matters peacefully. You cannot
conduct Peace efforts whilst you flagrantly break International Law and
violate previous signed agreements and expect the other party to stay
connected. Only a mug would enter into negotiations with Israel. Abbas
is telling America and Israel that he can get what the Palestinians need
without either of them and the Quartet is an extension of both. The
tsunami starts about here...the tide rose during Abbas's speech...look
to the horizon for the oncoming wave. Israel cannot be trusted.

and what will you Israeli's live with when another Arab state in
Palestine decides it wants to allow Iranian troops into the Gaza strip
or put Iranian missiles on the hilltops of Judea pointed at Tel Aviv?
Will you breath in relief and celebrate when Islamist takeover the new
Arab state because Jews are praying at the Kotel and that is an offense
to Islam? What will you do when Arabs continue demanding that millions
of Arabs be allowed to flood Israel? Wake up, Palestinians are not peace
partners they are interested in liberating Palestine from it's rightful
owners the Jewish people not making peace in Palestine and co-existing
with Jews.

People are just simply tired. They just don't know what or why the
antagonism between Israelis & Pals go unsolvable. People just don't
know when or how it will end. The solution seemed so plain and simple
and yet so difficult to come by. People of earth: in case we have
forgotten, overlooked, or perhaps unknowledgeable, know this: Essau
(Palestine) is at war with his small brother since the day when Jacob
(Israel) stole his big brother's birth-right (Genesis 25 - 27). No
wonder, what appears so simple a solution to an aged-long conflict isn't
so simple at all.

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